Attention All Banana Lovers: Big Banana Sale at the Department of Agriculture Nursery!!

Rainy season is beginning, so it is a good time to start your banana plantation. If you want to grow healthy banana seedlings, you may want to purchase tissue-cultured plants from the Department of Agriculture for the nominal sale price of $1.00 (small plants) and $2.00 (large plants). All of the plants are virus-free and are guaranteed to not be harboring little fire ants (LFA), which love to be around bananas and hide between the leaf stalks. The little fire ant is a new invasive species on Guam and one way they are accidentally spread is by sharing bananas suckers infested with LFA with friends or family. To avoid spreading this new invasive species, get your plants at the Department of Agriculture plant nursery.

Alicja Wiecko from the University of Guam Western Pacific Tropical Research Center has been successfully working with Department of Agriculture to put together the Tissue Culture Lab and make disease-free planting stock available to the public. It is a great resource for Guam's farmers and backyard gardeners.

The nursery has many tissue-cultured banana varieties that are new to Guam which are resistant to Panama disease (Fusarium wilt) and black Sigatoka (black leaf streak disease). The nursery is open every day (except weekends) from 8:00am to 3:00pm. For more information, please call Ricardo Lizama at 300-7972.